Actually, I believe spelling is a pattern-recognition talent ,much like musical ability, and should be marked the same way in school.

I have always gotten great spelling grades with absolutely no effort. Words just LOOK right or wrong.

I worked for several years with a great designer and software architect at IBM, who had a bachelors in EE and a Masters in Computer Science. He couldn't spell to save his a**, not some 5-letter words! We wrote two specialized computer languages over 8 years at IBM, which were widely used in Semiconductor test by about 100 people. THEY had to spell the keywords right, but my friend only had to get them correct once, in the compiler-building code.

Right now when I misspell somethin it shows up in red, with suggestions. FM.